Testing notes

The teams were blessed with a full day of dry running yesterday, but will they get any more? I’ve arrived at a dry circuit this morning but there is a lot of cloud and the weather forecast this morning said rain would arrive around 10am – much as it did on Wednesday.

Kamui Kobayashi ended yesterday as the fastest driver after a late flier, and Sebastien Buemi was quickest for much of yesterday’s session.

But it was Fernando Alonso who caught the attention with a very long stint, well over 40 laps in duration, in which time he still lapped with two seconds of the fastest car on the track.

Today almost every team will change drivers with Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa along those taking over.

The track: Circuito de Jerez

Eight of this year’s pre-season test days will take place at this circuit. The teams last tested here during the young driver training days in December. On that occasion Daniel Ricciardo set the fastest time for Red Bull with a 1’17.418.

Tweets from the test

Here’s the ten latest Tweets from people at the track, including me:

If you would like to suggest a Twitter feed to add to the list, please suggest one in the comments. The list only updates when this page is refreshed.

Seems we have this strange order of comments back again. My question about temperatures was osted at 8.44 but appeared above Calum’s post at 8.01 am.
This is posted as a reply to my 8.44 post; let’s see where it slots in.

Alonso’s fastest lap of yesterday was done on one of the final laps of a 50+ lap stint. Jenson says that Jerez circuit is abrasive on tyres. I think, its fair to judge that Ferrari is kind to its tyres, and is pretty fast :). I am so happy :D :D

Some cars will need less fuel due to greater engine efficiency, and also maybe teams could try to start a little on the light side to pull away and ensure track position then ease off last few laps, or gamble on a safety car when a given lap uses far less fuel…

The fuel thing will make it tempting for teams that know they would normally be well out of the points to run fuel loads that won’t get them to the flag. Showboating for sponsors and fans and praying for race stopping rain. Something else for “the show” – puke

I’ve been stood down at the turn ten hairpin watching the cars braking into it this morning, while it was still dry. Petrov was having trouble getting the Renault to slow down, he ran very wide at least once and had a big lock-up on another occasion (which I caught on camera, will have a picture up soon).

The other thing about the Renault was that, just like yesterday, it was the only car with glowing brake discs.

Hamilton appears to be running another aero gizmo on the McLaren, his times were quite slow this morning – Felipe Massa gradually caught and passed him in the Ferrari.

Maybe this is just me being an optimistic fan but…
The slow lap times might be related to that aero device. It’s designed to measure the airflow through a specific area but also the distribution of the airflow.
This will change at different speeds, so it’s very possible that he had to cruise at specific speeds to allow the readings to stabilise.
Something to the tune of, “Ok Lewis, go to 80mph now …. …. now 90 mph” and even going around corners at constant speed too.

Keith, a comment you made about Massa catching and passing Hamilton this morning made me wonder… how much to the drivers act as though they are racing during tests? If a car is stuck behind a slower car, is the car in front expected to let him by, or do they really have to fight their way past?

Obviously, I know it’s only testing, and the teams wouldn’t want their drivers to risk trasshing their cars for no reason. But F1 drivers are competitive creatures. I remember Q3 at the 2006 French GP, Schumacher and Alonso seemed to be ‘racing’ each other for the fun of it in the otherwise pointless fuel burn period

Some of them were letting other cars go past by getting out of the throttle coming off a slower corner.

De la Rosa went past Barrichello in front of me while I was there and Barrichello gave nothing away, he stayed with de la Rosa on the outside and the two came out of the corner side-by-side. De la Rosa got ahead though – about three cars passed Barrichello.

They don’t defend their positions but you sense there’s no love lost. Massa have Hamilton a bit of a squeeze when he went past the McLaren.

Prehaps because you would have to have colse to equal amounts of balast on left an right wheels?

Prehaps they do but probably connected to the fairing or break section in some way, I think moving ballast would have all sorts of diffcult to predict variables through corneres, you’d never set it up right.

Ballast on the wheels is possibly there but hidden, an you could only have it in a still position to help with back front balance.

Well i am sure it would be good as far for just the view point of ballast. However, since moving the ballast to parts of that car that are unsprung (wheels, brakes, etc) would be very undesirable as it would cause the the suspension to be less responsive. For example, people have tried moving brake discs to the centre of the car so that they dont add to that wieght. However, that failed because of the ridiculous torsion forces that the axel is put under.

Lucas di Grassi just made it out in the Virgin for the first time, he did a seven lap run with the new front wing. The team hadn’t quite got all of the stickers on it. Here’s some pictures: F1 testing pictures: 12th February

(1) How do you rate Jerez as a test track ? From its outline, it seems that it offers a mix of high- and low-speed corners w/out any real long straights. I understand that it is a far better barometer than Valencia, but do you think there are elements of a car’s design that don;t really get tested on this track ?

(2) James Allen reports today that Michelin is in talks w/ the FIA about a return to F1 in 2011 as the sole supplier. Who do you think has the superior tyre technology and also reliability, Michelin or Bridgestone ?

Well, from a media point of view Jerez is great because the centre is is in the middle of the track and you can see various points of the circuit from it. The facilities have recently been updated and are very good.

For the teams I think the track is more reflective of the slower courses they’ll visit during the season – the likes of the Hungaroring for example. But they wouldn’t be spending more than half of their days here if it wasn’t useful for them in terms of the data they get from the track, the dependability of the weather (today’s rain notwithstanding) and the ease with which they can ship parts in from their bases (as Virgin did today for example).

Can’t add much to the Michelin story other than to say it’s not so much a question of tyre technology as who has the infrastructure to supply dozens of sets of tyre to 13 teams for 19 races on all corners of the globe. Bridgestone can, and there are many who think they’ll be persuaded to stay if costs can be brought down – it’s no coincidence tyre allocations are being cut for this year. Michelin presumably could because they supplied most of the grid only four years ago.

I’m finishing up at the circuit for today, here’s my write-ups from two interviews this evening including a one-to-one with Lucas di Grassi who was very interesting to talk to (not that Hamilton wasn’t, of course!):